 Hey curlfriends, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today and today is the day that I'm going to say goodbye to my beautiful faux locks. It was such a vibe. It was such a look. So glad I did it for my vacation, but all good things must come to an end. And I need my curls back. Like I'm not looking forward to taking these out, but I do miss my curls. I need them back. I got new products to try it for you guys and I'm taking a new license photo tomorrow. So I probably should look like my photo. So not only am I going to show you how I go from my protective style and revert back to my curls in this video, I'm also going to tell you about Costa Rica. I'm back from my trip from Costa Rica with all of my subscribers, my curl friends and wow, it was such an amazing time. So I want to give you guys all the deets include some footage of my trip for those of you that are curious and maybe you don't follow me on Instagram. I don't know why. Definitely follow me on Instagram if you haven't already done so at Ms. Bianca Renee. Cause if you have, you've already seen, you know, some sneak peeks, but another curl friend trip is coming very soon. So keep watching for more information. Okay, let's stop stalling. Let's just cut them out. So these are crochet faux locks, meaning all of my hair is braided down to my scalp. So none of this is my hair. If you get braids, you probably like cut maybe like around here, depending on your length, but I'm going to cut all the way up to the root because none of this is my hair. Technically the way this is done, it's just looped in here. So I could go like this and just pull it out of this loop and take them out one at a time. If you wanted to keep the hair, this hair has been in the ocean and the river and the pool. Realistically, I'm not going to reuse this hair, but if you want to, you could wash it, I suppose and use it again, but I'm just going to cut because time is money and ain't nobody got time for that. So before I do that, I am trying to do like a really cool TikTok or real. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm going to cut it like right around here, literally for no reason, just for the gram and to kind of see how it looks at a shorter length, but you don't have to do this step. First snip. Oh, it's happening. Oh man. It's kind of fun. Wow, I look like Whoopie Goldberg. Look at that. So my trip, it was five days, but I got to go a little bit early with my husband. So we got to go the day before everybody got there. Mind you, I thought we were leaving on a Thursday, and then I just happened to see a notification that was like, you can now check into your flight. And I was like, why would I check in two days early? And I was like, oh, we leave tomorrow. I got my dates mixed up totally wrong. And I called my husband who was at work and was like, hey, I'm we leave tomorrow. So hope that's okay. So it started off a little nerve-wracking. Luckily, I'm a professional procrastinator. So I was going to pack the day before anyways. We got it done. Our flight was smooth. It takes about five hours to get to Costa Rica from California. And Royce always takes the aisle seat because he's tall, meaning if you get married to somebody tall, you are forever stuck with the middle seat. That's something you commit to when you get married if people don't tell you about it. But then nobody showed up for the window seat. So I got to stretch out with my belly. I got to spread out my legs. So that was great. Having all three seats just for ourselves. Also remember, if you are pregnant, you actually get to cut the line. For those of you that know me, you know, I have a very serious line allergy. So I have clear to cut the line. I recommend TSA Pre-Check, global entry, whatever you need to pay for to cut the line, do it. But if you're pregnant, they let you board first. So that's always cool. You know I use that perk. So we get there and our hotel is about an hour from the airport. It's a little bit of a drive. We check in. The weather is beautiful. We got a little nervous checking the forecast, but it was wrong. So the weather was like great, the whole trip. So here's some footage from the hotel. It was absolutely beautiful. But basically everything was kind of like outdoors. There wasn't really an inside part to the whole hotel. And our room was on the third floor and there were no elevators in this hotel. Well, that was kind of a good to know, especially being pregnant. So it had two beds in the room and we're like, it's not exactly I love Lucy. We'd rather sleep in the same bed. So we actually ended up switching to a different room on the second day so we could keep our beachfront view, but just have one bed. So the first day we just chilled, we ate at the restaurant at the hotel that was right next to the water, next to the ocean. We got some ice cream and then I was putting together some goodie bags for my curl friends. I asked curl Smith and Sunday to Sunday, they could send me some goodies and they did. So thank you curl Smith and Sunday to Sunday for sending me some product. I got my curly favorites from curl Smith from my people coming with curls and then I got some braid favorites for those coming in protective styles from Sunday to Sunday. Funny story. Customs was trying to take my product. I had a whole bag of all of the products for everybody and they were like, Oh, this is a lot of stuff. Do you think this is like how much do you think this is like worth? I was like, I don't know. It was a gift. I'm not a lie. And then she was like, Oh, so do you think this is like more than $500 worth of stuff? And I was like, this is curl Smith guys, Sunday to Sunday. These are not cheap products. But I was like, No, no, definitely not worth more than $500. These little curl Smith minis travel size is like 99 Zen store. I just had to declare it and just sign this little piece of paper. Let me take my products. Well, that's a look. Snip, snip, snip. Wow. It's so light. And I wish I would have done this soon. I would have made it even this one. I'm not a hairstylist and just kind of like get multiple use out of your protective styles. Like if you do crochet, you could cut it. You can kind of like blow dry it, make it really straight. If you don't want the curls, do I dare do a short style next? I think I'm too extra. I think I was used to my like long length. The hair flip doesn't hit as much, but it's actually easier to do. Okay, let's keep going. So now it's day two and a lot of my curl friends are going to be arriving. We're going to start off with a welcome dinner, but we spent some time by the pool. I wanted to take some pictures of course. They had little like lounge chairs in the pool. So that was cool. Then we went to go to hang out on the beach for a little bit. They had horseback riding. I definitely would have done it if I was not pregnant. But while I was waiting at the beach, I ran into my first girlfriend, which was Naima and treated her to a pina colada. Because you find me first, you should get a free pina colada. That's just how it is. I had a million virgin pina coladas on this trip. And then I ran into, what are we next? I think it was Chantel and Caprice on the beach. They got there even before I did. They were just living their best life and extended their trip. But yeah, so I started running into people even before a welcome dinner. We had some drinks appetizers by the pool. It was a great time. Then I went back to the room to actually get dressed, get cute so I can meet everybody. And it was just the restaurant. Scared me for a second. It's so weird cutting this much off. Like it feels like I'm cutting off my hair and I look like Julio. Anyway, so with this trip, when you really think about it, it's a little crazy. I've never met you guys in real life. You haven't met me, maybe a handful of you from like meet and greets. And I always say it's not where you go, it's who you're with. Like that can easily make or break any trip. And I'm literally going on vacation with 15 strangers. People I don't know. Like they know of me from the internet, but that's about it. So this could have gone one or two ways. It could have been crazy or wonderful. And luckily it was wonderful. So I got to say hi to everybody. We introduced ourselves, told everybody went around and said what they did. I ended up having four nurses on the trip. So me being pregnant, that was nice because here I was, you know, one point worrying like, should I still go on this trip if I'm pregnant? And God sent me four nurses, one of them being a labor and delivery nurse. So I was fully covered. Look at this. So our first real day altogether was an optional excursion that I had planned, which was a safari boat tour. This was not included in the original price. A handful of people decided to pay the extra cost to do the extra excursion. So we get on a bus and the guy starts, you know, saying how it's going to go. And then we realized it's going to take two hours to get there. Didn't expect that part. So our resort was in very like a touristy area. So we had to really get to, you know, the safari-ness with the monkeys. So as we're on the bus, he also kept saying, so we're all going to get into the raft. And then once you're in the raft, did it a raft, did it a raft? And I was like, question, by any chance in Costa Rica, do you guys call your boats rafts or do you literally mean like a raft? He's like, no, like an inflatable raft. I was like, cool, cool. Yeah, you're going to get helmets. You're going to get a life jacket. You're going to paddle on the river paddle. Yes. And there will be crocodiles. What? Here I am very much pregnant, about to get in the river rafting ride at Disneyland without the controlled environment that Mickey had set up for us. So we get there and we just see the river. The river is flowing. I'm like, oh my God. I don't know if I should do white water rafting right now. But he said it'd be safe. He said it was really slow and chill and that I'd be fine. So he noticed that a little prayer took my labor and delivery nurse, Kate, and Naima who said that she'd won a canoe race before. So that was all the experience I really needed at that moment. But luckily the river was chill. It was like a lazy river. I didn't have to paddle because I was pregnant. So everyone else did the work for me. Thank you. There were just little patches where it would get like a little bit fast. And then as we went on, we saw some monkeys in the trees. We saw some birds and it was cool. It was chill. It was kind of long. I liked it. You know, something I've never done before. Then after that, he was okay. So now we're going to get back in the bus. You guys did it. And he said, we're going to now hike to the waterfall. I was like, hike to the. This was not even in the description, a waterfall. And I was like, wait, hike. I'm still very much pregnant. What kind of hike are we talking about? And he's like, Oh, no, it's not like really a hike. You just like go down these stairs. You'll be fine. Okay. We get there. And it was just a set of stairs, a decent amount of stairs. And then we saw the waterfall and the waterfall was like the coolest part. I prefer the waterfall over the rafting. And I realized I've never seen a waterfall in person before. So it was beautiful. And we took a bunch of pictures and videos together. I absolutely love the waterfall part. So that was worth it. Wow, I went from Whoopi Goldberg to Wanda Sykes. This is why we have to switch it up. You can't have the same here your whole life. Because look how different you could look. I just, I became three different people in like 15 minutes. This would be big chop, Bianca. If I like went for it. It's kind of cute though. I'm definitely look more like a mom. I think I look more sophisticated. Okay. So now that we've cut this, and this is kind of a whole different vibe that I might want to actually do one day. I'm just going to go like this and then just pull it out the loop like that. So while half of us were in a river in the waterfall, the other half were just chilling by the pool, going to the beach. Then we decided to have our first theme night. We did like a safari, no tortoise print allowed dinner. If you know, you know. So everybody wore some type of like animal print or safari print. And everybody looked so cute. I was so glad we did like matching outfits for that night. It actually made us stand out and everybody was like looking at us thinking we're just a group of models. And the funny part was people kept coming up to us and they were like, Oh, what are you guys celebrating? We were like, our curls, our hair. That's all we're celebrating our hair. And I'm all for that. Our hair should always be celebrated. Oh, halfway there. Oh, it's actually nice to see my hair again. It's really there. Got scared for a second. So the first night we went to a place called Albe. I think it was Albe. And it was a place kind of like other bar lounge club-ish place. But I wanted to go because they had a fire dancer performance right on the beach in our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Diria Tamarindo. And I really loved the location because it was walking distance to basically everything. All the cool restaurants people were recommending. If you did want to go to like the club scene, like bar scene, you could walk everywhere. So we walked to Albe and they had happy hour for a very long amount of time. Once again, I got a virgin pina colada, but everyone else got to get really cheap drinks. I was like $4. And then the fire show started, which was epic. So because we were trying to make the most of our trip, we didn't eat there because I heard the food there was kind of whatever. I wouldn't expect much from like, you know, bar food. So then we went to this place called El Macarito. It was basically like a food court for a bunch of different types of food. So you can go and get sushi. You can get crepes. You can get artesian food. You can get pizza. I think they even had burgers. The taco place was closed. A little bit of everything. So I thought that was a perfect place to go because the vibe was so cute. There was like lights. There was live music. We got to reserve a huge table for all of us to sit together. And that way people can just go and get what they want and pay separately without having to like, split a check. So that was like, perfect for everyone to try a little bit of something from different parts of the world kind of. But we had a lot of birthdays on this trip. So first of all, our tour guide that comes would throw the trip. Rocio was amazing. And she went above and beyond to accommodate us. So she was the one who actually was able to reserve the table for us because I didn't know how I was going to make a reservation for 15 curl friends without being able to use my phone and like call the restaurant. But she did all that for me. She got them to save this really big table. She even helped me get three birthday cakes for my curl friends to celebrate. Kimmy, Chantel, and Kate. So we got to sing them happy birthday. Costa Rica with Bianca Renee today with a bunch of new curl friends on your birthday. That sounds like a bomb birthday to me. So by that point, this mama was a little pooped. So I went back to the hotel with most of us. A couple people stayed out for some more drinks. There was already a bar there. And we had a great night out. Oh, by George, I think we've done it. There's all my hair. How it was underneath all that hair. All intact. Now I got to figure out where to start. Oh, there we go. Finding pieces. It's going to gently pull and see what was tucked and where. Maybe I should just start unbraiding. Ooh, this part can get tricky. I think I need a reptile comb. So I'm going to use the comb like this with a little point to kind of help me undo this braid. Oh, let the detangling begin. Back to life. Back to it is later. I did it. And now I'm Diana Ross. I've been so many different people in this video, but I did learn from my last protective style that you are not supposed to then just shower and detangle your hair. We're actually supposed to detangle our hair dry, which is something that I would never, ever recommend. But when I washed my hair straight out of the braids last time, it just made all this not together and it made it impossible to detangle. Even with my favorite detangling brush might be hair full. Even with my favorite conditioners, nothing worked. So I'm going to try to actually detangle this time dry first. Look at all the crusties. Cannot wait to wash my hair. Let's see, I'm going to let's see if I can use a wide tooth comb. This wide tooth comb was from the Carfinn Collective. Same place my scrunchies are from. But okay, what day are we on? Next day, we had our first like full group outing, which was a pottery making class and a tortilla making class. Now when I was creating this trip or picking the itinerary I wanted, I purposely picked chill things like this because I knew I was going to be pregnant. So this was a very like relaxing vacation. So we went to this house that was like an hour ish away. We got there expecting to get like our ghost on and like make a big pot and take it home somehow through TSA. But we realized it was more of a pottery demonstration. So we just started having trust issues with the descriptions on the trip because we weren't making a pot because in order to make it it's like a two day process. So we were watching someone's abuela make this pot from scratch and like step on the clay with her feet. And then you have to then make the clay and then you make your pot and then you put in the sun for like two hours and then you can like paint it and then you got to put it in the fire. So there was no way this ceramic item was going to be made in time. Like we would have to stay the night and come back and finish our pottery the next day. So it was great and it was really educational and I really enjoyed it. It's just like just going in with the right expectation was a thing. And then same with the tortilla making. Well first they fed us. The food was delicious. The like Costa Rican food like traditional meal is chicken rice and beans. So you're getting your protein. So we all sat at the table and they fed us. That was great. That was also included. And then we made tortillas. Well once again we watched someone else make tortillas and then then she asked if we wanted to join. So you know we were helping like churn the corn and then we started to pat it and try to make the tortilla. But it was more like an optional who wants to join in situation versus like a and now we're all going to make our tortillas together type of class. Luckily I had a really really really dope group of girls. Excuse me. We have majority girls and two guys and out of my whole 15 crew trip everybody actually came on their own except for my two girls from Canada. They were co-workers so they came together. And then there was one girl who brought her husband who was our only person that didn't have curly hair. But even he was cool going with the flow like happy to be part of the curly crew. Everybody got along and the age ranges were crazy. Our youngest person I believe was 20. The drinking age in Costa Rica is like 18. So he had a great time. We were celebrating like a 50th birthday. So 20 to 50 some 30s and some 40s in there. Yet we all got along and everybody was so cool. People could have easily maybe like been upset that the descriptions weren't completely accurate or like been like this is not what I signed up for. But like no there was no drama no Karens. Nobody was like mad about anything. Everybody just had a good time. So I was just so grateful that everybody was so chill and was just down to have fun. So if you want to come on my next trip I just hope that you're like as cool and chill as the first crew. We had no divas. We had no egos. It didn't even become like clickish. Like everybody was hanging out with a different person every day. So most people came by themselves but everybody left with new friends and we still talk in our group chat to this day and the trip is over. And almost everybody on my first trip wants to come back for the next trip. So I mean only 20 spots are available for my next trip and the possibility that 14 of them are already going to be wanted to be taken by my last crew of curl friends. So I think that also says something that people had a great time otherwise they would not want to come back. Now would they? They could have been like oh Bianca is so annoying. I can't wait to get home. I don't want to hang out with her ever again. But they liked me. They really liked me. So after that excursion we then went back to the hotel for my curl friend workshop where we decided to end up just doing it in the pool and I led or hosted a curly hair workshop so people can ask me whatever curly hair questions they want. Yes you could watch my youtube videos. Yes some of you get responses in my DMs or my comments but this is your opportunity to like talk to me face to face tell me all your curly hair problems questions concerns and we talked about it and it was a really great chill thing. I didn't want to have like a PowerPoint presentation or anything. People were literally just in the pool with our pina coladas talking about curly hair, sharing our struggles, sharing our favorite products, our curly hair secrets and I think it went great. Let me know if you'd want me to do another curly hair workshop on my next trip. If you're planning on coming of course. All right hair struggle. I think I'm all calmed out now. Do you see how versatile it is? And shedding wise this is the only hair I have thus far which is not bad for you know weeks of not washing my hair. There's a little bit in the comb. Hopefully it's not too much more when I shower but even if you do see a lot of shedding I mean you haven't washed or tankled your hair in weeks maybe months so don't freak out. It's normal. Now I think I want to add a protein treatment just to add some strength to my hair and then I'm going to go get my Bonnicole rehab solve. I'd like to use it on clean hair to be honest but let's just try this. This has to use on damp hair um so I'm gonna have to now let my hair I'm gonna just dunk my head and think grabbing the Bonnicole rehab solve. This is really great if you have damaged hair whether it's from heat damage or color damage. I'm kind of using it just as a reviver for more protein in my hair strengthen it after my protective style oh yes and it smells so good oh yeah detangling is already about to be so much better I never really thought about the Bonnicole having slip but then again I did already detangle while I was drying but oh this is night and day do not wash your hair fresh out of braids definitely detangle first because this is a million times better than last time I did it the curls are back high curls craziest volume though like y'all saw how big my hair just was what is this the eighth look of the video so now my hair is saturated in the Bonnicole rehab solve I'm gonna put it up and away and I'm gonna get a shower cap and maybe yeah I'm gonna let it sit for at least 15 minutes then I'm gonna hop in the shower to you know actually wash my hair I get rid of some of this build up shampoo conditioner shall I show you guys I'll take you with me follow me it's now been about 15 minutes I'm going to rinse out my Bonnicole rehab solve and now I'm going to attack this scalp using the Rezos curls detox scalp scrub this is aloe vera pink clay peppermint so it's really going to help cleanse this very dirty scalp and I'm kind of going to do a double cleanse because I'm going to rinse this out and then go in with my curl smith super slip prebiotic primer to detangle and wash my hair before I add another scrub which is the wash and scrub detox probiotic exfoliating clarifying shampoo this also has really small micro like beads to really help exfoliate the scalp then I rinse both of these out together and I'm grabbing the curl smith post biotic calming conditioner this is for the length of your hair but also has really great benefits for your scalp it feels so amazing to have my hair back and clean again my scalp is feeling great curls with the tangled now let's add a mask fresh out of the shower now I'm going to apply my deep conditioner to get some more moisture back in these curls this is the Rezos curls vitamin c repair hair mask if you don't have any Rezos curls product this is the one to get I think it's safe to say that this is my new favorite Rezos curls product but it also repairs your hair and vitamin c is just an ingredient that I've been obsessing over mainly even in skincare but it has benefits for your hair as well if you guys want to see my full review on this product already live on my channel but back to my curl trip after my curly hair like Q&A with everybody in the pool we then had our all-white dinner so we went to this really cute restaurant called dragonfly I love the vibe all the places I picked were based off of vibe there was the DJ playing music and it was kind of like a steakhouse or a steak and seafood place and the food was delish I think we all looked pretty darn snazzy in our all-white outfits and now for the final day of my trip this was our catamaran day but at this point we all did not trust any descriptions of boats we didn't know what we were gonna get in we got to the beach and then there was a smaller boat that takes you to the big boat and when you get on the big boat there was like a whole bar like open bars that was cool for everyone else oh that was the thing it was supposed to be snorkeling by the time we got out there the water wasn't like snorkel appropriate so we weren't able to snorkel because you wouldn't be able to see anything that's just based off of the currents of the ocean there's nothing that anyone could have done to control that so we weren't actually able to snorkel but we did have some noodles and we just floated in the water people were jumping off the boat it was really fun and we were on that boat like all day and we stayed on to see the sunset took some picture and this really had a great time I think it was the perfect ending to our trip but then we went back to the hotel for our final farewell dinner back at the hotel and everyone had really nice things to say about the trip so everybody can we go around and say what everyone's favorite part of the trip was meeting Bianca I was like oh my god I've been watching her forever I love that night we had the fire show the whole thing it was like for me it was just like really enjoyable like every day just learning about like Costa Rican culture the hair workshop because that was like golden really feeling the love of the curls family now there was like truly authentic like moment definitely like getting together with people that I haven't had the opportunity to see this many people with curly hair or textured hair you know very in the very long time going out every night with you ladies and our little themes dress up nice being with a whole bunch of people who have curly hair you know we have the same issues and how we can just like talk about that so I thought that was really cool curly hair community I don't want to sound like a Vin Diesel meme but I genuinely feel like we are family even though I do not qualify y'all accepted me having so many people I can relate to it's so refreshing to be able to feel people that just get it they just understand I don't ask why you're rapping your hair why you don't know I've always felt like I don't like sit in with the black community but I don't fit in with the white community so this is the first time that I've been with more than maybe one other next to another time and so it's really the first time that I felt like you know like I'm part of a community and that like I belong and people get me so that was an unexpected huge benefit and all of it started with hair and that's our sit on my hair for at least what's the bottle say oh it's only on the box I do wish that it was on the bottle I'm leaving on for at least 15 20 minutes been a while since my curls have had some love and then I'm gonna rinse it out and style it I think it's like 9 p.m at this point but new my hair all day rinsed out that deep conditioner I'm gonna add a leave in from not your mother's curl talk I wanted to keep it light because I did a lot of moisturizing things to my hair today and I honestly don't think this is gonna dry tonight so I might have to come back tomorrow to show you the dried result but overall as you can see I had an amazing time with all of my curl friends I loved hearing all the really nice things that they had to say everyone had such a great time and as a host and a party wedding planner myself like having happy guests is the greatest thing that I can have or even ask for and I hope to see most of them if not all of them again on my next trip so let's talk about the next trip it's already happening we're talking about July 2023 so next summer and there's only 20 spots available and honestly when am I posting this video it might be too late if I'm posting this when I think I'm posting this then the video went live two days ago on Friday and there's a very very good chance that it's filled up because people on instagram have been seeing how much fun I had in Costa Rica and I was getting dm saying like I'm coming to the next one for sure so as of my last time I looked at my little poll on instagram over 100 people said they were for sure down over 500 people said they were maybes and that was just today not including everyone for my last trip so there's a good chance it's already sold out but if not I will put the link in the description box so you guys might be able to join us because we are going to Bali I've never gone to Bali before I haven't even been on a flight that long so I'm kind of nervous for the flight I think it's like a whole day if not longer so that's going to be interesting that's going to be a very big girl travel decision for me but we're staying at two different hotels and they look so cool we have a lot of excursions planned all that's included all you need is a deposit to secure your spot so you can still sign up and be on the wait list just in case someone can't make it anymore so if it is sold out click the link and join the wait list because I'd love to travel with you next year and end it off with some whole what I'm going to grab my og fav that not your mother's curl talk curl activating moose I do want to give a special shout out and thank you to everyone that came on my Costa Rica trip you guys are my original you know my og first time travelers that was my first trip and you guys made it so memorable and special and this is like our thing now now it sounds like everyone wants to just have the same group every year but I do hope some new people get to join as well so we can expand our curly crew and I'm back the curls are back truth is I fell asleep last night so this is technically my day two hair I refreshed in the morning this using some more water I had a little bit more moose and I think I put a little bit of my curl Smith shine gel as well for some more crunch but my curls look very very shiny it's so light and fluffy I was able to put my hair like up in a bun last night or a pineapple felt amazing I just wanted hair like just off me just up and away but I do love my protective styles when I have them but then once I get my curls back I love my curls if you enjoyed this lock takedown slash Costa Rica recap vlog make sure to give me a thumbs up and subscribe my birthday is coming it's almost here and all I want for my birthday is to hit 600,000 subscribers here on YouTube so if you're new here please hit that subscribe button and if you aren't maybe you just clicked on my link from Instagram and actually never hit the subscribe button it happens it's okay I'll forgive you if you just do it right now I remember if you do want to know more about my next girlfriend trip make sure to click the link in my description box so you could at least join the waiting list if it happens to be full and before anyone yells at me about giving it to Instagram first I also posted it here on YouTube in the community tab so it's there but if you are on social media make sure to follow me on Instagram TikTok and Twitter at MsBeyondGrenet and I'll see you guys next time thanks for watching BeyondGrenet today